It has been a while! I have been doing a lot of performing and teaching and have learned so much! I wanted to share this update with you that I have of my arrangement of “I Love My Love” by Gustav Holst.
In my search for a choir, it became apparent to me that cost and commitment would be an issue. I needed a way to write down the music and a way to express it. Finding a choir wasn’t exactly what I had in mind and I wanted something that was more easily within reach that also didn’t require me to try to find singers and rehearsal time.
I decided to look at software that was available. In my search, however, I was always disappointed; a lot of oohs and ahhs from choirs, but nothing that I could really use. My professor once told me that MIDI files are as good as nothing because it doesn’t really portray the music besides the notes and pitch. I agreed and decided that I needed something much more. As much as I love some of the programs that were out there, I could not find what I wanted. Eventually, I stumbled upon something that was close to what I had envisioned: EastWest Hollywood Choirs.
I will give you a more in-depth review of this product, but so far it has great potential. The advantage of it is that it has an interface called “WordBuilder” that lets you put together sounds to create words. The disadvantage is that it is not entirely intuitive and you have to have a lot of time to experiment. Articulations are also very tricky and the legato leaves much to be desired at the moment. Nonetheless, it does serve a great purpose: Vision. With this, I am able to put to paper what I feel the choir can do and it breathes a bit of life into the arrangement.
Overall, this revamp of “I Love My Love” took me about two weeks to put together, clocking in around 50 hours total. I could definitely put more shapes and phrases in, but the lack of being able to audition an entire phrase makes it very time consuming; in fact, I would say that most of the time wasted was having to start from the very beginning of the piece again to be able to hear the changes I made (software and interface problem with EW). I will eventually make a list and send it in to EW to see what their thoughts are regarding the UI and UX (User Interface and User Experience).
I went ahead and took it upon myself to recreate a choir in my mind that I had for this piece that I put together a few years ago. The solo parts were sung by the virtual EWHC Soprano and Tenor sections. Please enjoy this – now you have a “sampled” choir with roughly the ideas and sounds that were in my head when putting the arrangement together.
Click on the link below to get your perusal copy:
http://bass2yang.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/I-Love-My-Love-Yang.pdf
If you do perform this, please send me a courtesy email at thou@bass2yang.com.
– Thou